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>>I believe BULK based command and utilities are targeted for efficiency (among other requisites). For a comparison of the efficiency of different insert methods: https://www.simple-talk.com/sql/performance/comparing-multiple-rows-insert-vs-single-row-insert-with-three-data-load-methods/
>
>Thanks, I'm trying to use a BCP command to create the format file I need but it's not working:
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>bcp transactions format nul -c -x -f transactionformat.xml –t, -T
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>gives me: incorrect syntax near format
>
>Any idea what I am doing wrong? I need a format file because I need to skip a couple columns (assuming the default values will get populated using bulk insert)

bcp is a command line utility, you must run it from the command prompt.